Andrew Schaer

In many ways, a marketplace is like a population of living organisms. With pressure, it evolves, and behavior changes. We've seen advances in communication technologies combine with a dynamic economy to alter consumer expectations. Services like on-demand, just-in-time and digital printing evolved to fill the niche provided by consumers' new-found need for speed. Players in the book space have been slow to adopt Internet print procurement solutions, but e-commerce companies are hopeful that the climate will change. E-procurement, in short, involves securing print services over the Internet via auction or other Web-enabled methodology. Companies like 58k.com focus almost exclusively on online auctioning. Others,